


Do you think I ate the fruit unwillingly?

by Optimistic_Nihilist



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Dadster is not Badster, Depression, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Gaster is not Badster, Magic, Magic Explained, Mama Goat, Mathemagic, Monsters, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, Mythology References, Sans (Undertale) Remembers Resets, Undertale Saves and Resets, W. D. Gaster shenanegans, Worldbuilding, Writer's Irony, again kind of, but don't worry I update quick, but no one really remembers him???, gotta get that skeledong, in general, magic systems, or maybe two depending, tw: cliffhangers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 01:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17673437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Optimistic_Nihilist/pseuds/Optimistic_Nihilist
Summary: When the Six Mages created the barrier, they did it wrong.Akira is a lonely orphan tired of a hungry world. She treks the Hungry Mountain regularly, aided by the Ranger. One night she doesn't come back from it, her lantern the only evidence she was there in the first place. Haunted by dreams she can't quite remember, and a figure that keeps appearing out of the corners of her eyes, she digs through the underground in search of an answer that seems just out of her reach.





	1. Chapter 1

Akira grunted, dug her fingers into the alcove of rough stone and pulled her body forwards. Ebott, the Hungry Mountain, was an absolute blast to trek, more so the massive cave system that felt more like a personal dungeon system. That didn’t make the last stretch any more of a bitch, though. The steep incline towards the entrance felt more like an actual wall than a heavy slope. The strap of her massive side bag dug into her sore shoulder, and her expression tightened slightly as she kept climbing.

 

The wind was cool and soft, breezing through the trees like a fairytale or a dream, and Akira could smell the brisk scent of rain on the air. She could hear the soft rustling of grass blades rubbing together, and the tree leaves waving in the wind. The stone beneath her skin was cool, the heat of the sun still warming the rough rock. It was a perfect day for deep-cave camping.

 

... _Or_ , Akira glanced upwards at the full moon before returning focus to her hand and footholds. _A good night._ The cold was working wonders wiping away her sweat, the thinner atmosphere making her take shorter breaths. Scratches littered her palms, little indents and scars where the raw stone scraped uncalloused skin, a story of her previous adventures up the mountain.

 

Akira couldn’t remember when she first started climbing the Hungry Mountain; maybe it was after the third Home, where her adoptive parents who swore to never abandon her left for brighter futures. Maybe it was after the first, when her hopes for a family that loved her were dashed with glass bottles and cigarette smoke. Whenever it was, Akira remembered the running. She remembered scraping her knees on gravel and cutting her palms on the barbed-wire fence, but the pain didn’t penetrate her panic. Fight and flight lit up like a beacon, she dragged her heavy body up the mountain until she was to the top of the slope and rolled to her side into the short bit of grass just before the treeline. Sobs wracked her body until she couldn't breathe, curling so tightly into a ball stars shone beneath her eyelids.

 

She woke to the bright moon shining down at her, grass almost cradling her and nature surrounding her in a comforting embrace. It was midnight, and the moon was full, and through the tightening of her chest she felt as though she could finally breathe. Ever since then, the clearing became a sort of safe space. When she couldn’t breathe, when the lies became too much, when she got tired of people, she went up the Hungry Mountain and sat in her little garden to pray.

 

...Well, not really. She wasn’t the religious sort. But the Ranger, an old man who used to call the Hungry Mountain home, (and who she secretly called ‘dad’) was a Christian. He used to talk about how he couldn’t handle churches, which were always too full of people for him to feel comfortable with. He felt more comfortable in a park, out in nature, than in a temple. More happy around plants than around people. “Closer to God,” He said. Akira could relate. Humans were lying and hurting and never saying ‘sorry’, and even if she didn’t have the same opinions on religion, anything that made the old Ranger happy made her happy.

 

Akira hissed through her teeth, quickly picking up and rolling onto the grass on her side. She pressed a palm to her sternum, the low ache quickly dissipating into the background as she focused on different things. The old Ranger was dead now, buried behind his house after she found his still body out back. He had been protecting a pregnant deer from the pack of wolves that showed up every so often, and the both of them were lying in the red snow. The doe was okay, maybe a broken leg from the fall, but Ranger…

 

She shook her head, sitting up and pressing the bag into a more comfortable position. _Think about something else._ The entrance was in front of her, a big dark opening into the Hungry Mountain. In her more whimsical thoughts, she referred to it as the ‘Gaping Maw’ and the cave systems as ‘The Empty Stomach’. Nothing ever went there other than her, not even bats or little critters like you would expect. It was void of life.

 

Except for her. Just how she liked it. She stepped forwards confidently, stopping a moment to let the wind caress her face. She could feel sweat pool down the divots in her spine, sticking the fabric to her back, and felt more heated than usual. But, well, it had been a long time since she’d climbed the mountain, and she had actually thought she could _make it_ this time. More than a few months at a house. Enough time to stop calling it a house and call it a _home._

 

Akira sighed and pressed flappy sleeves to her face, swiping away sweat. The parents at the house were nice, an older couple that seemed to understand her better. They were calm and quiet and uncontrolling, and seemed to understand ‘depression isn’t as much a hurdle as it is a state of being’ better than most people. But after the last time they made some callous remark, or stopped her from going to her morning classes, Akira just couldn’t take it anymore.

 

She grabbed her clothes, swung her go bag onto her shoulder, packed up and left.

 

She took a breath, closed her eyes and willed the depressing thoughts away. She was gone, out of that place, at least until they climbed up and found her again. The lack of old man Ranger would slow them down, but not stop them from finding her. Something bitter and dark and oh so familiar welled up in her chest, and she curled a palm over her sternum. _I know._ She whispered to it in her head mournfully before turning forcefully away from the thoughts.

 

She walked forwards, pressing a palm to the cave wall to keep her balance as the cool dark washed over her. She closed her eyes at the blissful feeling, water and musk and dust and moss reaching up to greet her with a cool rush of air. Gods, but she _loved_ the Lonely Mountain. She dipped her fingers, tracing the long scratch where, when she was younger, she lost her balance and the metal zipper of the bag scraped the wall with her weight. If she scraped her foot just so, the low ringing noise the tiny stalag… mite? Tite? Made would match the one she made when she decided, foolishly, to kick the floor in anger after a particularly nasty fight. If she squinted _just_ right, she could almost make out the carvings on the wall, strange scripts she still couldn’t translate.

 

 _Heh…_ She chuckled, fingertips lingering on a rather sharp edge before she clenched her fists and forcefully turned away. This was beginning to sound like a dirge, or the dramatically sad uplift before the character hit the ground. But she was here, and she was alive, and she did not fight depression just to lose to her own damn self when she needed her own support the most. Instead she tugged the bag off of her shoulders, lifting her arm so that gravity would carry the bag to the side.

 

The only noise was the sound of the zipper being pulled echoing through the cave and the distant sound of crickets. She tugged her sleeping bag out first, rolled it out, and then grabbed the little electronic lantern. A flick of her wrist and it opened, surrounding Akira with a warm light blue glow. She toed off her shoes, sinking gratefully into the sleeping bag and tucking her head on top of the bag. It was rare she got quiet times like this, tucked in a safe place so far away from civilization.

 

It was nice, being in the cool and quiet. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. The outside world lit up with a thunderous crack, the echoes of thousands of tiny droplets hitting the earth as the storm broke. She took in short breaths through her nose, fighting to get that first taste of rainfall in the back of her throat. Her body collapsed, boneless, when it finally reached her. The night was cool, the rain was steady, and she could taste the waterfall on her tongue. It tasted like home, like nights exploring with Ranger and days mapping out the forest. It tasted, felt, smelled, like home.

 

It was a beautiful night to fall asleep to.

 

Another loud crack echoed through the cave, and Akira snuggled down into her sleeping bag before freezing in confusion. That was thunder, right? So, where was the bright flash of light that followed? She leaned forwards, almost sitting up. Another crack, and she blinked open her eyes. No light… again? She squinted, cursing her shoddy eyesight and lack of glasses, hoping for the mystery to come into focus.

 

Her eyes widened in shock and she froze as another loud crack echoed through the cavern.

 

There was a hole in the floor, a massive hole where there was _not supposed to be_. Right next to her. In the middle of the cave. It was close enough that leaning to the side would suck her in.

 

An array of cracks sprayed around her frozen body, and she watched as with another _crack_ the amount widened. Her fist clenched around her sleeping bag. Something in the back of her mind was screaming _move move move movemovemove move move c’mon go go go go go_ as her eyes followed the new crack to the massive hole. Gravity failed her as she lurched to the side, stone collapsing and taking her with.

 

The last thing she saw was the inky blackness coming up to meet her before something passed through her and she blacked out.  


* * *

 

 **Have you ever wondered**  

 

**What it would be like**

 

**To live in a world**

 

**Where you don’t exist?**

 

The deep, calming voice chuckled, and she could feel fingers running through her hair. Static like nails on a chalkboard or shattered glass vibrated through the air, but instead of being caustic it was calming. She felt safe here, with the strange male figure, with her head on his lap.

 

He was familiar, her old friend. Had she… seen him befor _e_? Of c _o_ u _rse_ _s_ h _e had. He was her faithful companion in this empty void, of course. She pressed a hand to his own, content to sit and comfort him with her physical presence._

 

**The concept…**

 

... **t e r r i f i e s me.**  

 

_His hand tightened on her own, and she lifted her head to stare him in the eye. He was tense, focusing on something in the distance. Her mouth opened and words spilled out, a beautiful rhythm of bells and crystals and little metallic noises exiting in a song of some sort, one that she would never be able to translate._

 

we awaken soon, my love. _She pressed white colored palms to the sides of his head, cradling bone cheeks in comfort_. soon, she will remember.

 

 **And forget.** _He reminded her, pressing palms to her shoulders and pulling her into his lap._

 

 _She didn’t answer, instead moving her hands to cradle the middle of her chest between them. They pressed their foreheads together to watch as something coalesced, pearlescent stars into a shape._  

 

she listens, dearest mirror mine. _A tiny heart shape floated between them, spinning gently. White, but awash with so many colors, like a bubble mid-flight._ can you hear her?

 

 _He paused, scooping the tiny floating heart in holed hands. She tucked her free hands around his waist, happy to sit and comfort a_ s h _e_ saw _._

 

**So hopeful…**

 

**Her dreams…**

 

 _He lifted his head to meet her_ e _ye_ s, _so_ me _t_ hing endless and desperate aching between them.

 

 **Do you truly believe she can do it?** He demanded in a wave of harsh noise. She simply smiled, holding his hand in her own and between them, the heart.

 

 _she will._ She promised, something between a vow and an oath settling over them like a TRUTH.

 

Between them, for a split second, the pearlescent heart lit up gold.

 

The male figure sighed before pulling his own heart out of his chest. It was white and black, a single glass star shard against a background of static. She did the same, light arching off of her rainbow heart like a rave.

 

 **Well.** He lifted a palm that seemed to suck all of the darkness towards it towards the spinning SOUL.

 

**She does not have to hold**

 

**This gift/dream/hope**

 

 **Alone.** He drew symbols over it in a script she couldn’t identify, inky blackness coming to surround it like a blanket, something cold dripping over her being like a cool cloth on a hellishly hot day. Tiny stars shone through, like a singular contained galaxy. The female figure pressed her lips to his head in thanks, and then kissed the heart.

 

 _you would not hold this gift naturally, my child_. She explained as a wave of spikes sheared through her skin like nails. She had no mouth, but the tiny soul almost seemed to scream. _but my gift was meant for heroes, not conquerors, and to heal and fix, not to fight._

 

She sent the tiny void-veiled soul away with a flick of her hand, adjusting herself closer to her mate while still training her eyes on the glimpse of white starlight.

 

 _go, hollow dreamer._ Her eyes, all the colors and more that did and didn’t exist, met Akira and pinned her with the heavy gaze. _When did they seperate?_ _Awaken, find thine empty knight. Follow the broken queen. The shards of broken could-have-beens will lead you. And when we meet again…_

 

Her eyes flashed, a thousand futures in the balance. Akira shivered. What the hell kind of interdimensional bullshit did she get herself into?

 

_d o  n o t  h e s i t a t e._

 

Akira launched herself upright, a hand to her sternum as her heart fought to beat out of her chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...whoops heres another chapter? I checked my word count and stuff and can apparently separate this one into two.  
> Introducing; Omnicidal Weed but not the fun kind, with a brief appearance by goat mom.

That dream… She panted, eyes unseeing as she thought back to it. Gods, but it felt like sitting in an open wound, being in that dark void. And those two… entities. 

 

She flinched, glancing around quickly. The texture under her fingers was soft, and she was surrounded by a sea of yellow. She glanced down, rubbing the softness between her fingers.  _ Flowers… _ She remembered falling, the cracks in the floor unable to support her weight. She remembered passing through the empty darkness, something thick like mucus rolling through her body. She remembered…

 

_ A flash of dry fingers through hair. Dark, darker… yet somehow unquiet. _

 

She shook her head, pushing that to the back of her mind. Nightmare. That was all. She slowed her breathing, pushing through the tug of slight oxygen deprivation until her heartbeat was calm enough for her to stand without shaking. 

 

She shifted forwards on her heels and stretched an arm forwards to lift herself up, but aborted the motion immediately with a flinch. She fell back on her tailbone, wincing. Her other arm came up to rub gently at what she affectionately called the ‘chicken wing’ of the human body, and the sudden starburst of pain drew a hiss from between her teeth. Without looking, she couldn’t be sure, but an unfamiliar injured feeling spread from her back, from the ‘chicken wings’ to the upper ribs. She drew together strength automatically, prodding deeper while avoiding the most painful areas. She needed to know how hurt she was before she moved on, so she knew the best way to heal. Her finger pressed against a sharp edge and she couldn’t hold in the tiny “ow” that escaped through clenched teeth as a sting settled beneath the skin of her back. 

 

_ Fuck. _ She glanced around for something to brace, squinting as hard as she could as she turned her head around, careful to leave her shoulder and arm limp and lifeless.  _ Broken bone. _ She had never had one of those before; even falling from a tree hadn’t broken anything, just made her sore as hell and full of scratches from the landing. She still recognized the feel of it, though, from what Ranger had described and what others had experienced. She traced a line of rough bumps on her ribcage and thanked the gods her ribs were okay. 

 

Something soft brushed her cheeks and she blinked down at the fluff coiling around her shoulders. She pulled at it with her uninjured arm, blankly curious. Akira owned nothing like this- no matter how she wished, she couldn’t afford anything nearly like this unless it was worn in, stained heavily, and the dye was washed out. She was lucky if one of her Homes cared enough to get her presents, and even if they did it was usually jewelry. Never anything like this. This looked  _ expensive _ .

 

It was exactly her style- dark, darker, and darker. Black with light grey fluffy insides, and- she twisted her neck a little further, trying to see her shoulder without moving it- a darker, more pure black patch with a simple four pointed star design in white. She squinted and the shape cleared a bit. Two white four pointed stars atop each other, actually. It almost looked like a chaos star. 

 

She looked down again, and almost choked as something touched her neck. She peeled the fabric away and glanced down, and yep, she was in a turtleneck. A gray turtleneck with black vertical stripes. Something dug into the hollow between her collarbones and she traced it, feeling smooth metal in some sort of ‘V’ shape, covered in hollows. Thankfully she was familiar with the shape, and swiftly identified it. A bird skull, one of the bigger ones. Akira’s eyes went down to her legs next, and she shifted them underneath her to feel the insides. It looked like jeans, almost, but felt like the inside of a sweatshirt. 

 

_...Neato _ . Akira pushed all of her weight onto her uninjured arm and lifted herself up, careful to keep her arm limp and still. She very distinctly  _ did not _ think about the implications of her being in different clothes, even though she could see the light of her lantern up above, and she knew she hadn’t been moved from the spot she fell onto. She also didn’t think of how odd that a hole would be in the floor when she’d been in that cave before, she’d slept where that hole was, before, and  _ what the actual fuck _ ?

 

She very distinctly did not think about these things while she shuffled around the flowers looking for her bag. It was a deep green, and she carefully nudged around the flowers looking for that spot of color. Her clothes were nowhere to be found, but hopefully her bag was still somewhere in existence. She pet the fluff with her fingers, parting petals carefully in order to get by without hurting the plants. She didn’t recognize these, they looked somewhat like sunflowers, but more vibrant. She squinted at a dark spot, and smiled internally. That one even looked like he had a fa-

  
  
“Howdy!”

 

-ce. “HOLY SHIT!” She jumped away from the talking flower, only just remembering to keep her arm steady and still. What the fuck. She stared down at the fucking  _ talking flower _ blankly, mind officially blue-screened. Somewhere in the back of her head, her knowledge of the universe was screaming and gibbering in confusion behind the massive dam of ‘nope’.

 

“Ha ha!” The flower fucking  _ winked _ , a star flowing out from his motions like Kirby did in Smash as a taunt. “Wow, friend! That’s a long fall you took there. You nearly squashed me, y’know!” It  _ felt  _ like a taunt.

 

“Sorry.” Akira apologized automatically, mind still stuck on the  _ talking fucking flower _ even as her confident mask picked up the slack. 

 

“That’s okay!” The flower leaned closer, and Akira shoved her hand in her jacket pocket and fought the urge to lean back. The black dots making up its face changed, and for the billionth time Akira cursed not wearing glasses. She got the feeling this was important, and it discomforted her to not be able to see someone’s face while they were talking.

 

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” The flower asked, settling back. Akira tilted her head in acknowledgement, fight or flight instincts going haywire as she willed herself to stay in place. Something about the flower was dangerous, and scary, and  _ wrong _ , but she knew this was important, somehow, and so she waited. 

 

The flower perked up, and the feeling of  _ danger _ washing over her grew more intense. Her muscles relaxed slightly, and she prepared for action. Her mind cleared as she pushed away  _ makes no fucking sense _ and  _ physically impossible _ and focused on  _ this thing is going to hurt me, maybe even kill me. I don’t have time to be confused. _

 

She called it her quicktime state. It saved her from quite a few unneeded bruises and beatings from ungrateful Homes, when she could push past the hurt from a biting insult and dodge out of the way of a fist. And now, hopefully, it would give her enough time to escape being killed by a flower.

 

“Don’t worry!” The flower winked again, and Akira felt strongly to the contrary as something crawled up her spine. “Your ol’ buddy Flowey can help you!” By everything sweet in existence, the childish voice mixed with the innocent look were giving her bad vibes. Things that looked so innocent rarely were, after all.

 

Flowey smiled, but something about it was so  _ wrong _ , like he’d seen a picture of someone smiling and tried to copy it. There was a curious tugging sensation in her sternum, and Akira blinked down at the blue? white? purple? heart shape floating over the center of her being. It was beautiful, whatever it was. The endless eddies and waves of her favorite colors washed over each other like an ocean, and much like watching water it was mesmerizing.

 

She forced her gaze back to Flowey, the palpable feeling of danger making her skin crawl. The Heart-thing was important, she knew without any context, and she could look at it later. It was in danger,  _ she  _ was in danger, and she needed to wait.

 

Paradoxically, instead of growing more tense Akira grew more calm as adrenalin spread from her heart to her limbs, breath glowing soft as she focused on being  _ ready. _ She flexed the fingers of her uninjured hand, subtly shifting her weight from leg to leg as the constant firecracker/fireworks explosion screaming to  _ move move move move move  _ going off in the back of her mind came more into focus. The only time she thanked the gods for her ADD and its inability to want to stay still.

 

“That’s your SOUL!” Flowey made that smile again, and Akira fought a palpable wave of disgust. Around her was something like from one of the old pokemon games, except in grayscale, with Flowey on one end and Akira on the other. Akira’s Heart, the culmination of her entire being, was on full display, while Flowey’s was not.

 

_ Why is that? _ Something pushed to the back of her mind asked idly.

  
  
**_He doesn’t have one._ ** She answered herself, and for the fraction of a second she squinted her eyes as the light shining above from her lantern glinted off of her Heart and flashed a fiery gold. 

 

_ Well that’s another ‘what the fuck’ to add to the pile _ . She thought blankly, keeping her focus on the flower, who was summoning… seeds? The fuck? 

 

_~~ (Is this my internet history coming back to haunt me?! ) ~~ _

 

Flowey winked. “Wow, you’re really weak!” Her mind shot back something between ‘says the flower’ and a sarcastic ‘thanks you fucking weed’. “I can fix that, though! Down here, strength is shared through little… ‘friendliness pellets.’" He winked again, and good gods Akira hated that expression. He released them, and they all zoomed towards her.

 

“Go on!” He encouraged. “Catch them all!”

 

She shifted to the side, dodging them neatly as she fought the urge to flee into the black. She didn’t know which way was out in this weird grayscale pokemon gym, after all. 

 

The flower’s smile was a bit more forced. “You missed!” He giggled, forgetting or forgoing the sweet tone. The seeds spun back into existence, and Akira yet again moved out of their way. 

 

The smile suddenly wasn’t; a black sort of demonic snarl instead decorated the Flower’s face. Akira took a step back.

 

“ **Y O U  K N O W  W H A T ‘ S  G O I N G O N,  D O N ‘ T Y O U?”** He almost roared in that high-pitched tone, and Akira froze like a mouse in front of a lion. She stayed stubbornly silent, something harsh and whisper-thin bracing her against  _ he doesn’t deserve your words _ . “ **YOU JUST WANT TO SEE ME SUFFER!** ” 

 

And then there were bullets- bullets surrounding the little purple heart that was everything she was, that was her, and Akira suddenly knew very clearly she was about to die. Her eyes flicked back to her Heart, and through every fibre of her being something sang  _ Revolution! Revolution! _

 

She refused.

 

Her mind went hundreds of directions at once- the nightmare her mortal mind couldn’t bring itself to remember, the runes drawn on the fabric of her very self, the two beings and the veil that covered her from the eyes of harm. She pulled on it, using the same feeling of her Heart being tugged from her chest, and something answered. 

 

Something familiar and calm washed over her like ice water when she was on fire, and she felt but didn’t feel, not with skin or nerves but with something intrinsically deeper and more sensitive, something bubbling out of her like thick chocolate or cool, squishy slime. Her eyes were cloudy, focused on the feeling, but she idly watched as a stretch of black, dark

  
  
  


stretched over her Heart, covering her tiny infinity with a strip of a larger infinity. It had the consistency of something between a liquid and a solid, and thick, and looked like something the Venom symbiote would look like if it shined like oil in sunlight and swallowed a gallon of glitter. It covered her Heart thinly, leaving enough of an impression of the soul sticking out that against the backdrop of black it looked like the galaxy.

 

Something in the back of her mind- and she got the impression of the bare wisp of a shadow, the dark flash of a hawk’s wings over a field mouse, the cool feeling of shadow over skin, over burns, and the cool feeling of water sliding into unresponsive lungs.- shifted, the empty space ringing in that language that still made her clench every muscle in her body in revolt. Her shoulder- hell, the back of her entire upper  _ left side _ stung with the force of a thousand bees, and she forced herself to relax even as she laid there on the flowers, spread on her back with her Heart back in her chest where it belonged.

 

* * *

  
  


“Oh my!”


End file.
